Bluetooth® low energy (BLE) (also referred to as Bluetooth® Smart) is a wireless personal area network (PAN) technology that can be used for a variety of client device applications and is intended to provide reduced power consumption and cost while maintaining a similar communication range as Bluetooth®. Many mobile device operating systems for smart phones, tablet computers and wearable devices support Bluetooth® Smart. The technical specifications for BLE are described in Bluetooth® Core Specification 4.0, which is a public document made available online by Bluetooth® Special Interest Group (SIG).
One potential application provided by BLE technology is proximity sensing. BLE beacons broadcast a Universally Unique Identifier (UUID), which can be detected by a compatible application or operating system running on a client device and used to determine the physical location of the client device or trigger an action on the client device.